A local-global principle for isogenies of prime degree over number fields

Abstract

We give a description of the set of exceptional pairs for a number field $K$, that is the set of pairs $(\ell, j(E))$, where $\ell$ is a prime and $j(E)$ is the $j$-invariant of an elliptic curve $E$ over $K$ which admits an $\ell$-isogeny locally almost everywhere but not globally. We obtain an upper bound for $\ell$ in such pairs in terms of the degree and the discriminant of $K$. Moreover, we prove finiteness results about the number of exceptional pairs.